Posted on 05/02/2015 2:27:29 AM PDT by harleyrider1978
Good grief. We are supposed to be reading and referring to the the same document, but here is what I see in the 2006 Surgeon General’s Report, Six Major Conclusions, Subhead 4, “Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing lung cancer by 20 - 30 percent.” Can you provide direct quotes and precise cites or html links to your contrary supporting authority?
Harley is just talking to himself.
For some reason, tobacco and pollution seem to draw out the most dogged and obtuse of defenders.
Militant smokers crack me up.
Best habit I ever gave up.
Can you document your statement that ‘the move is already afoot to begin the repeals in many states right now’?
Does that mean that the group of smokers you hang with on the sidewalk outside the bar door are all grousing about doing something?
And nope, this ex smoker has never bitched about 2nd hand smoke, twice a week rehearsals with the band comprised of 3 smokers and me.
So why are people so down on tobacco, yet insist on smokable marijuana!?! I just don't get it. I also wonder how OSHA feels about the toxins in a pot-filled room? How about people using it and operating heavy machinery? How do they monitor if the stuff hasn't been dusted with another illegal drug?!? Anyone else feel this way?
I can handle smoke odors, what causes me to have respiratory distress is the phenomenal amount of fragrance people seem to think they have to use. Some of the 'body sprays' have my eyes watering from five feet out.
BTW, the absolute worst smoke I have encountered (in terms of immediate pulmonary irritation) was burning lint in a clothes dryer fire. Second place goes to burning chilli peppers, and the average house fire ranks a distant third. (I am a former firefighter.) Tobacco smoke is way down the list.
The bottom line is that the people who pushed to ban smoking in as many venues as possible didn't like the smell. That becomes a matter of personal preference, not a health issue. Me, I find the cloying funk of tree farts on a summer breeze oozing out of some plug-in widget unbearable.
In a completely unscientific study, I found the sight of a cigarette pack, or even an unlit cigarette (especially in proximity to an ignition device) was sufficient to provoke acute respiratory symptoms (especially cough) in persons who did not like cigarettes.
Often, my less than gentle response was "Will you let me get the d@mned thing lit before you start hacking, please?"
Yep, I agree fully. I don't like the smell of skunk, and a lot of the newer pot smells like that.
I thought so as a smoker 35 years, and still do, after being free of smoking for 25 years. However, the smell is bad, and more objectionable now that I am not inured to it all through my house and clothes.
I do not lease my rental property to smokers, or dog or cat owners, either.
My insistence on smoking wasn't worth its contribution to my divorce (not the only one, tho'), for sure, regardless of what Rudyard Kipling said.
Cheerio --
“Why are their any smoking bans at all they have absolutely no validity to the courts or to science!”
Because it made some people’s clothes smell bad, therefore the elimination of private property rights was well worth it! /s
“Thus, in public venues, “
How do you define public venue?
“Smoking is simply a filthy habit and an inconsiderate irritation forced on others that needs to be banned in closed public areas, just for its social unacceptability.”
Yep, private property rights be damned! We don’t want stinky clothes!
Now that we have established that private property rights are no longer valid for property owners that allow the general public to enter, now we can use that newly formed “public accomodation” definition to do so much fun!
Let’s begin by forcing bakers to make wedding cakes for gay marriages, then we can make photographers take pictures of the same ceremonies! We can force folks to open their bed and breakfasts’ to the joyous occasion!
It doesn’t matter if those business owners object, or have moral/religious objections, they own a business that offers “public accomodation.” As a result, they are no longer free to chose which customers to cater too! They must accomodate the State’s demands!
Enjoy “The Brave New World!” It is well earned.
“You can try to make your case. I don’t need any more proof than my own eyes.”
Sounds like Al Gore and Micheal Moore.
This is sort of like loud music, fast driving, or degree of nudity, which are quid pro quo issues. One's public deportment is free and personal until it inflicts a disruption of enjoyment of the same space by others. Then it becomes political and an issue that touches on the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of others who can and may well inflict their dissatisfaction on the personal interests of a perpetrator.
So we tolerate the habits of others, and modify, adjust, or refrain from our own social behaviors lest others retaliate. I was a smoker for a long time, but now the effects are unacceptable if I cannot move away from the source of irritation. Same for body smell that is simply not tolerable.
What's your particular sensitivity? That you don't like to have your beliefs or deportment criticized or limited?
Just pondering on gray-area behaviors.
“That is up to the democratic process.”
Democratic socialist is what you mean. Hence, we are supposed to be a representative republic, where private property is sacrosanct!
“I voted against it on philosophical grounds,”
I am very aware of the electtion you referenced, and am glad to see that you did not support it with your ballot.
“does not seems to have done appreciable damage to bars and restaurants as businesses. It turned out that most people preferred not to eat or drink with the odor of cigarette smoke about them.”
All of that is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that the cigarette, cigar, or whatever policy should only be decided by the owner of the property. The fact that we have somehow decided that this is now legitimate, simply means there there is no longer ANY private property rights.
I could ban all sorts of activities on any property now. I can also force behaviour anywhere now. We are seeing this exact thing with regards to gay “marriage.” The smoking bans gave them the tools, now we get to reap the whirlwind.
Welcome to “The Brave New World.” It is a well earned utopia.
“One’s public deportment is free and personal until it inflicts a disruption of enjoyment of the same space by others.”
Just wow! What a society of soap bubbles we have become. Now we can not tollerate any “disruption of enjoyment.” I see that the movie “Demolition Man” was much more prophetic than I could have imagined at the time.
The fact of the matter is that in order for you to have your “enjoyment disrupted” by cigarette smoking in a restaurant or bar, you must voluntarily enter onto property owned by another. You have no expectation of any particular enjoyment, except what the property owner is willing to offer you, or by extension me. If that property owner wants to offer you a completely smoke free environment by banning tobacco use, then he is free to do so. If he wants to offer me a venue to enjoy the use of tobacco while I imbibe on his other offerings, he should be free to do so.
“What’s your particular sensitivity?” I have a very hard time tollerating tyranny.
“That you don’t like to have your beliefs or deportment criticized or limited?”
I am more than willing to succomb to the beliefs of the owner of the property. Other than that, I am not very sensitive at all. I am a strong defender of a business owner not being forced to participate in a gay wedding, I am also a strong defender of them being able to set their own tobacco policy.
Freedom goes both ways.
If the issue is that of self-medication by nicotine (which is a poison), current technology permits this craving to be satisfied without stimulating rejection of non-smokers.
Resorting to snuff-dipping, chewing tobacco, Nicorette (R) nicotine resinous polyacrylate gum, or nicotene skin "patches" are valid options. These alternatives give the non-smoker a break, and may even point toward the benefit of seeing this poisonous and expensive habituation to be abandoned as nonsensical and self-destructive.
The real problem in the politics of tobacco is that the effects of the delivery system is no longer socially tolerable for the majority. Encouraging a different route of ingestion that doesn't directly offend others might be an acceptable solution to all.
But insisting on a total ban on smoking without giving any avenue of enjoying it is not how a free society functions, which is the observation you make and with which I agree.
I'm beginning to think that you fail to understand that opening one's property to the public may bring its operation under the laws governing its use, and that is decided, not by the owner as a proprietor, but as a business under license by the city, county, or state; and is no longer free to operate whimsically.
Your argument has value only when the property is operated as a private club, which also has its own rules to which you must agree if you join it.
Actually, privately owned real estate is not sacrosanct, AFIK, but is at least subject to be taken from one by eminent domain, and on the other hand operated according to zoning law, land use regulations, and business licensing. Like it or not, you are your brother's keeper, and his rights as to how to use the property are subject to the laws of the republic, in which we live according to acceptance of the social contract it offers to its citizens and property owners.
I guess I don't want to debate this any longer with you, because apparently your scale of values extends beyond what mutual agreement permits. I see alienation, not cooperation, as underlying the system you are presenting.
I am sort of sure I would not like to have someone with these ideas as my neighbor, if he/she is unwilling to negotiate use of his property that affect me or my property, and vice versa.
“I’m beginning to think that you fail to understand that opening one’s property to the public may bring its operation under the laws governing its use, and that is decided, not by the owner as a proprietor, but as a business under license by the city, county, or state; and is no longer free to operate whimsically.”
You have reversed the argument. The laws are decided whimsically and that is what has abolished private property rights. You even acknowledged that the law was changed by the “majority of voters.” That is an admission that the laws ARE subjected to change at the WHIM of the mob.
“Actually, privately owned real estate is not sacrosanct, AFIK, but is at least subject to be taken from one by eminent domain,”
Again, you have accepted the reversal of the meaning of terms. Private property IS sacrosanct if we desire a just and fair society. This specific argument would not exist if we simply left it to the property owner and allowed him to decide the fate of his own business. Then as the market demanded more “smoke free” venues, the business owners would voluntarily change. Even the use of “eminent domain” in your phrase is an admission of this sancrosanct nature of private property. If it is not intended to be such, then the framers would not have required “just compensation” for such confiscations.
“I guess I don’t want to debate this any longer with you, because apparently your scale of values extends beyond what mutual agreement permits. I see alienation, not cooperation, as underlying the system you are presenting.”
My “scale of values” is irrelevant to the discussion, as is yours. Neither overrides the property owner’s “scale of values.” I was more than happy to live by any property owners preferences, those that support this government dictate are not. So, no there is no agreement to be had in the theft of private property.
Yes, that leads to situations where a property owner CAN alienate an undesired segment of the market. A bar owner should be able to alienate smokers or those that can’t stand smokers. Much like a seafood restaurant should be able to alienate those with shellfish allergies and bakers should be able to alienate those desiring a cake for a gay wedding.
That is exactly how we have a just, free and stable society. In my system, everyone can be accomodated in the market and everyone is free to use their property as they see fit, without having the laws change at the whim of the mob.
Your position, the one sold to you by the democratic socialists, gave us KELO, smoking bans, forcing bakers to make cakes for gay weddings, forcing photographers to provide services for same and it WILL be used to force churches to perform gay weddings.
Many folks have lost their businesses, homes, livelihoods and all they had worked for. How is this fair and just to those property owners? It is not and by extension, it is not fair to ANY property owner.
If the laws regarding private businesses can be changed at the whim of 51% of voters, then there is NO SUCH THING AS PRIVATE PROPERTY for anyone.
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